Fletcher's route from surface commands to carrier raids

Frank Jack Fletcher reached carrier task-force command with extensive experience in destroyers, battleships, and cruisers. He had commanded New Mexico and served on the Naval Examining Board and in the Bureau of Navigation. Promotion to rear admiral brought command of a light-cruiser division, followed by a heavy-cruiser division in June 1940. Kimmel appointed him to the Wake relief force and regarded him as a suitable officer for carrier raiding. Those choices raise a counterfactual about whether Fletcher and Halsey would have received different later appointments if Kimmel had remained in command instead of Nimitz.